1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates an improvement on an apparatus such as a camera capable of performing magnetic recording on a photographic film having a magnetic recording part.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, there have been proposed cameras capable of recording information related to photography (for example, a photo-taking mode, the number of prints, a shutter speed, an aperture value, etc.) in a magnetic recording part provided on a photographic film, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,864,332, etc. With the magnetic recording performed on a photographic film by such a camera, various kinds of magnetic information are reproduced by a photo-finishing machine from the magnetic recording part of the film, and then, photographs are printed by the photo-finishing machine according to such reproduced information.
In addition, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,276,472, there is disclosed the technical art of recording an audio signal in a magnetic recording part of a photographic film at such an area that coindides with the inside of an image frame area of the photographic film.
Further in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. Hei 09-106000, there has been proposed a device capable of recording various kinds of information, such as photo-taking information, a frame title, other messages, sounds, etc., related to an image frame, in a plurality of parallel tracks which are formed on a magnetic recording part of a photographic film and which extend in the longitudinal direction of the film strip across image frames.
However, in the devices proposed in the above-mentioned U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,864,332 and 5,276,472, since magnetic information is recorded in any one of a plurality of tracks each of which has a start point and an end point within the area of every image frame of a photographic film, only a short period of sound recording time can be provided if a sound or the like is desired to be recorded for one frame.
Further, in the device proposed in the above-mentioned Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. Hei 09-106000, while magnetic information is recorded in a plurality of parallel tracks on a magnetic film across a plurality of image frames, the respective start points of the magnetic information are limited to such positions that respectively correspond to the plurality of image frames. Therefore, if a great amount of data is intended to be recorded, the recording capacity of every one of all the frames has to be increased, whereby wasteful areas may be produced. Besides, in order to search recorded data, all the tracks always has to be scanned, so that a long time is required for taking in data.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, there is provided an apparatus adapted to a photographic film having a magnetic recording part, which comprises a magnetic recording device which continuously records magnetic information on an area of the photographic film extending from a leader part thereof to inside an image recording area thereof, so that a greater amount of magnetic information can be recorded on the photographic film.
The above and other aspects of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments thereof taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.